Rick Rubin No.2: The Rick and Rick Interview

Rick Rubin in conversation with Rick Beato is the legendary producer's best interview to date.

Ever been to a Las Vegas buffet? I mean a really good one like at the Wynn or Caeser’s back in the day.

The Vegas buffet has all your favorites (and some new discoveries) each in its own section. The seafood station with lobster tails, freshly shucked oysters, and snow crab. Then the Prime Rib Carving Station. The cheese and charcuterie section. The bread section. The salads. The desserts. The omelette chef!

This cornucopia of culinary delights is the perfect metaphor for this new interview. And it serves up some inspiration and learning from an incredible conversation between Rick Rubin and Rick Beato.

It’s a veritable “Vegas Buffet” of creativity and music stuff featuring some iconic moments and insights from Rick Rubin’s remarkable career.

And while there is no shortage of Rick Rubin interviews, conversations and podcasts on the interwebs, I can safely say this Rick interviewing Rick is the best.

I’m calling this post “Rick Rubin No.2” since I wrote about Rick before here.

But before I go one step further, I am certain there will be a Rick Rubin No. 3 and No.4. That’s how rich, textured and inspiring this interview is. Today is a taste.

It helps that the two Ricks here are such incredible people. Rick Rubin, of course, is the legendary producer of some of the world’s greatest musical artists including Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, Run-DMC, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Adele and the Beastie Boys, to name but a few.

Rick Beato is a legend in his own right. A musician and producer who is also an exceptional music professor, music writer, music analyst and popular YouTube creator and host. If you don’t know Rick Beato, welcome to the man who will increase your understanding and appreciation for music ten-fold.

This conversation covers a lot of ground from Rick Rubin’s beginnings, his influences, his creative process, and incredible anecdotes and learning from some of the artists mentioned above.

Also, it’s a real treat to hear both incredibly knowledgeable guys listen to songs and provide play-by-play and analysis as the songs play. In particular, it was great to hear Rick Rubin point out the finer points of “Walk This Way,” with Run-DMC and Aerosmith.

It’s also a treat to hear Rick Rubin tell the story of how he spotted the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “Under The Bridge” going through Anthony Kiedis’ lyric notebook and asking the frontman about it.

Also fun fact: Rick Rubin actually played the iconic guitar lick on the Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep Till Brooklyn.”

This is a helluva wind-up to get to the subject of today’s post, so thank you for sticking with me.

There are so many interesting experiences, stories and learnings I want to share with you from this two-hour conversation.

But today’s post is about Rick’s experience with Tom Petty and the making of his magnificent album, Wildflowers.

It starts with the songs themselves. Tom would write them in batches of three to four and play them for Rick. Sometimes they were simple recordings on a cassette machine. Sometimes Tom took out an acoustic guitar and played them right then and there. Rick’s role was to simply listen. And then the two would discuss. As Rick says the process was: “…here's a batch of songs, let's talk about 'em. Here's another batch of songs, let's talk about 'em. And we got to the point where…there might've been 10 or 12 songs…we went in and recorded.”

As the producer (and as I see it here as “creative director”), Rick’s role was to listen and see what moved him. No pre-conceived agenda. Just listen for a feeling.

Once they had the song, they recorded quickly. As Rick says, “…the goal of the studio recordings was just getting the basic track. And we tried to do that as quickly as possible.” Rick explains that once they had the basic tracks they then worked and worked and worked and perfected the tracks, painstakingly, with the rest of the band.

This reminds me of the old Ernest Hemingway advice, “Write hot, edit cool.”

As you might imagine in an interview with two musical geniuses, the two Ricks geek out and go deep on the recordings of the songs. In fact, there is a particularly “music-nerd” moment about drum sounds on the song, “You Don’t Know How It Feels.” I was surprised to hear that there are no cymbals on that song. I had always felt there was a unique sound to those drums which I couldn’t identify. Now I know! No cymbals.

What I want to highlight for you (and a wider learning) is the philosophy of “use what you have.” Rick tells the story of failing when he tried to make certain drums sound like the AC/DC drum sounds that he loved. He learned to work with what was in front of him to make it the best it could be. As he says in the conversation, “…using the things you have and making the best of what those things are, instead of trying to turn 'em into the thing that you wish they were is a good way to go.”

Another great insight is the primacy of the story. Whatever song they were working on, the instruments were there to serve the song. As Rick pointed out, “What can the bass do that advances the story?”

Story is the most important thing. Tools serve the story.

The last part of the interview I’ll share today is about experimentation. Rick and Rick talked about trying different things. Not being hide-bound to the “rules.” As Rick Rubin says, ““It's always interesting to test, to test…the way you've done it before. Is there a new way or an old way that works better? We don't know until we test it, but to assume there's the one way is never the case. You never know.”

We covered a lot of ground here. I’ll summarize briefly:

Listen to understand – to feel.

Write hot and edit cool.

Work with what you have to make it the best it can be.

Story is the most important thing — serve it.

Experiment and test.

You don’t have to be a music geek to benefit from Rick Rubin. It’s why I urge you to listen to this interview.

But if you don’t have the time now, don’t worry. I’ll cover some more very soon.